In collaboration with
In collaboration with
A Place called al-Zawiya al-Hamra
A
Place
Called
al-Zawiya
al-Hamra
In Cairo’s far northeast desert periphery, a public housing project was underway in al-Zawiya al-Hamra, where Muslims and Coptic Christians lived alongside one another. Adel was 21-years-old on 17th June 1981, when sectarian violence erupted between Muslims and Christians in this working-class district.
Estimates of the dead range from 17 to more than 80, with hundreds of others injured, giving reason enough for then President Anwar Sadat to launch the notorious September 1981 detentions and place Pope Shenouda III under house arrest at the Anbā Bīshouī Monastery in Wādī al-Natrūn.
Sectarian violence in Egypt has long been associated with political power play, particularly between the ruling regimes and active Islamic political parties. During Anwar Sadat’s presidency, Christians were said to be targeted by Islamic groups — the same groups that Sadat used to quell leftist and student activism against him.
Similarly, Hosni Mubarak was rumoured to have mobilised his own state security to carry out sectarian violence, manufacturing a sense of Coptic insecurity and dependency on his rule as a buttress against Islamic political parties.
After the 17th June violence erupted, Egypt’s secret police (the Mukhabarat) stationed themselves as a visual deterrent throughout al-Zawiya al-Hamra and also launched a series of interrogations in nearby areas. They wanted the names of anybody involved in promoting Islamic teaching, holding group circles, or who had been critical of the government. Out in full force, it wasn’t long before the name Adel Abdul Bary was given over to them. With some prominence in the community, Adel had become an easily identifiable figure and had been heard to speak about the ills of state corruption. It was enough, his number was marked. Adel was now officially wanted by the state.
It was the time of Shaykh Kishk: the blind preacher well known for his passionate public sermons against the corruption of the state.
His repeated rounds of torture never stopped him from speaking out. Shaykh Kishk arguably began the era of the “audio cassette preacher”: using technology to spread his message further out than his megaphone could reach.
At the time, the famous blind scholar Umar Abdur Rahman was also imprisoned. The hunt was on. The secret police swarmed the place.
“Who do you pray with?
Who do you study with?”
Adel’s name was given up.
So was his close friend Muntasir al-Zayat. Muntasir was in hiding in Adel’s home, with the full support of Adel’s father.
Everybody in the community knew Adel, and Adel’s father knew people in the government. A hurried phone call from a concerned relative tipped off Adel’s father that his son was wanted, and in imminent danger. Adel returned home to his father telling him he must leave and lay low with friends until he hears further word.
“Was your father angry at you?” I ask,
“Inviting this kind of attention on yourself because of your Islamic learning?”
Adel looks blank,
“Angry? Angry why?
He knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. And my dad was a man of principle.”
After deciding where to go, Adel’s father left him with the parting advice,
“Don’t ever admit to things they want you to say, stand firm.
You haven’t done anything wrong,
so remember that.”
And with that, Adel was gone.
A Capture at the Corniche
A
Capture
at the
Corniche
In the aftermath of the sectarian chaos, the Mukhabarat upped their questioning of all locals. It didn’t take more than a hot minute for Adel’s name to crop up.
Adel was so well-known in his area, having gone to the same primary school, secondary school, and college as roughly 600 kids in one area. They actively socialised outside of school and most families had a working knowledge of the ins and outs of others’ lives.
Who is getting married? Who got divorced? Who went abroad? Who was heard arguing in the market?
Instant answers were only a question away. Occasions to celebrate and commiserate brought people together even more, cementing generations-long networks and friendships.
One night, Adel was on the balcony of his flat when he spotted a conversation getting heated on the street underneath. A man was asking after somebody, claiming it was an old friend of his. The person he was asking was the brother of this old friend and wanted to know what he was making enquiries for. Voices were getting raised and Adel went down to mediate.
The stranger was struggling to answer questions from the locals, so the crowd turned on him. Searching his jacket, Adel and his neighbours found multiple fake identity cards as well as a policeman’s badge.
There was an ID card for university, school, hospital, and government official. Helpfully, he also had a stack of folded papers with reports on how best to gather information to be used for intelligence. The instructions were no more complicated than this:
If you see a bearded male driving a taxi:
- Note down the registration number
- Locate his address and send intelligence officers to visit him
- Find out about his background and monitor all people he speaks to for seven days
- Go and visit all associates/friends/close contacts
- Build a list of suspects for arrest and interrogation
The undercover officer had been rumbled.
Word got out that he was a rat and he was beaten so badly by the neighbourhood that he left his job and apparently didn’t speak for two weeks. He then relocated right out of Cairo to somewhere nobody knew him.
While this was going on, elders in the community warned Adel’s father that trouble was coming:
“Don’t let your son be too prominent around here — this is the kind of entrapment and surveillance the government are up to now. While things are quiet, let him slip away because the HQ are going to come looking soon.”
Two of Adel’s friends had already had their names given up to the secret police — Muntasir and Rafa’i were already on the run. The three separated, and Adel went with Muntasir. They crashed at friends’ houses and slept many days and weeks at the airport, waiting for passengers that never came. They took turns to sleep so the other could keep a watch out. “We were young and naïve, we didn’t even realise how dangerous our lives had become — going from friends to family to friends’ homes, staying a few days at a time.” Weeks rolled into a handful of months as Muntasir and Adel were running out of places to go.
It was by the Corniche at the Nile River that their luck finally ran out.
The two men had an appointment with somebody name Khalid Hilawi. A family they had been staying with had asked them to hand over a letter to Khalid who was to cross over the Nile and hand the letter to his brother, Hassan. Adel spotted a pair of men on a bench opposite, holding old-fashioned newspapers just lowered enough to peer at him. He saw flashing sirens in the distance.
Adel knew their time was up.
“I turned to Muntasir, and said: ‘We’re in a trap now, there’s no way out of this’. He looked at me and waved his hand saying, ‘No, we’re fine — what are you talking about?’”
No sooner had he said so, that a huge fight broke out between a group of men by the bank of the Nile. One had a knife, others had fists and fury. As they turned to see what was happening, police crept up from behind them and restrained them. As soon as they were arrested, the men fighting immediately stopped. All actors. Adel and Muntasir were in handcuffs.
Right by the choppy waters of the Nile at night-time, the police began by stripping Muntasir of his clothes and beating him in public. Muntasir called out in pain, before both were bundled into a police car.
In the cells, they did the same to Adel. They made Muntasir watch as Adel was beaten, and Adel watch as Muntasir was beaten.
This happened on repeat
for 33 days.
Both men experienced nothing but complete disorientation.
“I felt like I had entered Hell, since before and after your own beatings you would only hear the screams of the other prisoners being tortured, day and night.”
Adel reflects.
“When I would go inside the cell, I didn’t know which prayer it was.
The only prayer I could recognise was the Fajr (pre-dawn) prayer, because the wording of the call to prayer is slightly different for that one.
Sometimes I would just pray, doing the motions and not knowing which prayer it even was.
My mind was blown apart.”
